VAPOR AND COMBINED POWER CYCLES

The objectives are to:

Analyze vapor power cycles in which the working fluid is
alternately vaporized and condensed.
Analyze power generation coupled with process heating called
cogeneration.
Investigate ways to modify the basic Rankine vapor power cycle
to increase the cycle thermal efficiency.
Analyze the reheat and regenerative vapor power cycles.
Analyze power cycles that consist of two separate cycles known
as combined cycles and binary cycles.
VAPOR AND COMBINED POWER CYCLES

The Carnot vapor cycle

The working fluid, steam (water), undergoes a

thermodynamic cycle from 1-2-3-4-1. The cycle is
shown on the following T-s diagram.
 VAPOR AND COMBINED POWER CYCLES

700
Carnot Vapor Cycle Using Steam The thermal efficiency of this cycle is given as
600

Wnet Q
500
 th , Carnot   1  out
400 6000 kPa Qin Qin
T [C]

300 2 TL
 1
100 kPa
3
200
TH
100 1 4
0
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 Note the effect of TH and TL on th, Carnot.
s [kJ/kg-K]
•The larger the TH the larger the th, Carnot
•The smaller the TL the larger the th, Carnot
 VAPOR AND COMBINED POWER CYCLES

To increase the thermal efficiency in any power cycle, we try to increase the
maximum temperature at which heat is added.

Reasons why the Carnot cycle is not used:

●
Pumping process 1-2 requires the pumping of a mixture of saturated liquid and
saturated vapor at state 1 and the delivery of a saturated liquid at state 2.
●
To superheat the steam to take advantage of a higher temperature, elaborate
controls are required to keep TH constant while the steam expands and does
work.

To resolve the difficulties associated with the Carnot cycle, the Rankine cycle
was devised.
VAPOR AND COMBINED POWER CYCLES

Components of a simple vapor power plant

RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES
1-2 Isentropic compression in a pump
2-3 Constant pressure heat addition in a boiler
3-4 Isentropic expansion in a turbine
4-1 Constant pressure heat rejection in a condenser
RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES

Energy Analysis of the Ideal Rankine Cycle

The kinetic and potential energy changes of the steam are usually
small relative to the work and heat transfer terms and are therefore
usually neglected. Then the steady-flow energy equation per unit mass
of steam reduces to
RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES

Energy Analysis of the Ideal Rankine Cycle

The thermal efficiency of the Rankine cycle is determined from

RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES

Consider a 210-MW steam power plant that operates on a

simple ideal Rankine cycle. Steam enters the turbine at 10
MPa and 500°C and is cooled in the condenser at a
pressure of 10 kPa. Show the cycle on a T-s diagram with
respect to saturation lines, and determine
(a) the quality of the steam at the turbine exit,
(b) the thermal efficiency of the cycle, and
(c) the mass flow rate of the steam.

Repeat Prob. assuming an isentropic efficiency of 85 percent

for both the turbine and the pump.
DEVIATION OF ACTUAL VAPOR POWER
CYCLES FROM IDEALIZED ONES
RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES
The effect of irreversibilities on the thermal
efficiency of a steam power cycle
 HOW CAN WE INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY
OF THE RANKINE CYCLE?

The effect of lowering The effect of

the condenser superheating the steam The effect of increasing
pressure on the ideal to higher temperatures the boiler pressure on
Rankine cycle. on the ideal Rankine the ideal Rankine cycle.
cycle.
RANKINE CYCLE: THE IDEAL CYCLE
FOR VAPOR POWER CYCLES
THE IDEAL REHEAT RANKINE CYCLE

A steam power plant operates on the reheat

Rankine cycle. Steam enters the high-pressure
turbine at 12.5 Mpa and 550°C at a rate of 7.7 kg/s
and leaves at 2 MPa. Steam is then reheated at
constant pressure to 450°C before it expands in the
low-pressure turbine. The isentropic efficiencies of
the turbine and the pump are 85 percent and 90
percent, respectively. Steam leaves the condenser
as a saturated liquid. If the moisture content of the
steam at the exit of the turbine is not to exceed 5
percent, determine (a) the condenser pressure, (b)
the net power output, and (c) the thermal
efficiency.
 THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE
The first part of the heat-
addition process in the boiler
takes place at relatively low
temperatures.
To improve the cycle thermal efficiency, the average
temperature at which heat is added must be increased.
One way to do this is to allow the steam leaving the
boiler to expand the steam in the turbine to an
intermediate pressure. A portion of the steam is
extracted from the turbine and sent to a regenerative
heater to preheat the condensate before entering the
boiler. This approach increases the average
temperature at which heat is added in the boiler.
However, this reduces the mass of steam expanding in
the lower- pressure stages of the turbine, and, thus, the
total work done by the turbine. The work that is done is
done more efficiently.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE. Open feedwater heaters
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE. Closed feedwater heaters

The ideal regenerative Rankine cycle

with a closed feedwater heater.
 THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE

A steam power plant with

one open and three closed
feedwater heaters.

The extraction pressures for multiple

feedwater heaters are chosen to
maximize the cycle efficiency. As a
rule of thumb, the extraction pressures
for the feedwater heaters are chosen
such that the saturation temperature
difference between each component is
about the same.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE

A steam power plant operates on an ideal reheat–regenerative

Rankine cycle and has a net power output of 80 MW. Steam
enters the high-pressure turbine at 10 MPa and 550°C and
leaves at 0.8 MPa. Some steam is extracted at this pressure to
heat the feedwater in an open feedwater heater. The rest of the
steam is reheated to 500°C and is expanded in the low-pressure
turbine to the condenser pressure of 10 kPa. Show the cycle on a
T-s diagram with respect to saturation lines, and determine
(a) the mass flow rate of steam through the boiler and
(b) the thermal efficiency of the cycle.
THE IDEAL REGENERATIVE RANKINE
CYCLE
SECOND-LAW ANALYSIS
OF VAPOR POWER CYCLES
The ideal Carnot cycle is a totally reversible cycle, and thus it does
not involve any irreversibilities. The ideal Rankine cycles (simple,
reheat, or regenerative), however, are only internally reversible, and
they may involve irreversibilities external to the system, such as heat
transfer through a finite temperature difference.
The exergy destruction for a steady-flow system can be expressed, in the rate
form, as
SECOND-LAW ANALYSIS
OF VAPOR POWER CYCLES
The exergy destruction associated with a cycle depends on the magnitude
of the heat transfer with the high- and low-temperature reservoirs
involved, and their temperatures

For a cycle that involves heat transfer only

with a source at TH and a sink at TL, the
exergy destruction becomes

The exergy of a fluid stream 

at any state can be determined from
SECOND-LAW ANALYSIS
OF VAPOR POWER CYCLES
Determine the exergy destruction associated with the reheating and
regeneration processes described in last Prob. Assume a source
temperature of 1800 K and a sink temperature of 290 K.
COGENERATION

Many systems or devices, however, require energy input in the form of

heat, called process heat. Some industries that rely heavily on process
heat are chemical, pulp and paper, oil production and refining, steel
making, food processing, and textile industries.
Industries that use large amounts of process heat also consume a large amount of
electric power. Therefore, it makes economical as well as engineering sense to use
the already-existing work potential to produce power instead of letting it go to
waste. The result is a plant that produces electricity while meeting the process-
heat requirements of certain industrial processes. Such a plant is called a
cogeneration plant. In general, cogeneration is the production of more than one
useful form of energy (such as process heat and electric power) from the same
energy source
COGENERATION

The utilization factor u for a cogeneration

plant as
 COGENERATION

The ideal steam-turbine cogeneration plant

described above is not practical because it cannot
adjust to the variations in power and process-heat
loads. The schematic of a more practical (but
more complex) cogeneration plant is shown in
Fig. Under normal operation, some steam is
extracted from the turbine at some predetermined
intermediate pressure P6. The rest of the steam
expands to the condenser pressure P7 and is then
cooled at constant pressure. The heat rejected
from the condenser represents the waste heat for
the cycle
COGENERATION

The rates of heat input, heat rejected, and

process heat supply as well as the power
produced for this cogeneration plant can
be expressed as follows:
COGENERATION
Consider a cogeneration power plant modified with
regeneration. Steam enters the turbine at 6 MPa and
450°C and expands to a pressure of 0.4 MPa. At this
pressure, 60 percent of the steam is extracted from the
turbine, and the remainder expands to 10 kPa. Part of the
extracted steam is used to heat the feedwater in an open
feedwater heater. The rest of the extracted steam is used
for process heating and leaves the process heater as a
saturated liquid at 0.4 MPa. It is subsequently mixed
with the feedwater leaving the feedwater heater, and the
mixture is pumped to the boiler pressure. Assuming the
turbines and the pumps to be isentropic, show the cycle
on a T-s diagram with respect to saturation lines, and
determine the mass flow rate of steam through the boiler
for a net power output of 15 MW.
COMBINED GAS–VAPOR
POWER CYCLES
The continued quest for higher thermal efficiencies has resulted in
rather innovative modifications to conventional power plants.
A more popular modification involves a gas power cycle topping a
vapor power cycle, which is called the combined gas–vapor cycle,
or just the combined cycle. The combined cycle of greatest interest
is the gas-turbine (Brayton) cycle topping a steamturbine (Rankine)
cycle, which has a higher thermal efficiency than either of the cycles
executed individually.
COMBINED GAS–VAPOR
POWER CYCLES